Albany and the South Coast
March 14th, 2008With the long weekend in early March we headed south back to the south coast which previously saw in November when we went down to Esperance. We’d initially planned to go to the Margaret River region which is about 3 hours south of Perth, but had left it too late to book and refused to pay $200 night accommodation! So instead we went for the longer drive to Albany, which is the oldest town in Western Australia. Must admit part of the appeal was going somewhere a bit cooler than Perth, where we have just had the warmest February on record, 1 day it hit 42C in the city and the minimum overnight temperature was 28C. I was running the a/c on Truckie driving to work at 5am!
We had some fun driving down - its about a 4hour drive via Mt Barker which is where the vineyards start. We tried one place which had some very nice dry Riesling which we bought a few bottles of and then we pulled over when we saw the next sign - but the gate was closed with a “no cellar door sales” sign - so Paul backed up to turn back onto the road - unfortunately he didn’t notice the culvert and we put the back wheel over it! It must have looked quite spectacular because a couple of local girls stopped and came rushing over concerned we were hurt- unfortunately we didn’t get a picture but the front wheel was well in the air and the back wheel was lodged firmly at the bottom of the drain. Fortunately since the 4WD course in Broken Hill we have been carrying a snatch strap which is cross between a tow rope and an elastic band - and their vehicle had a tow bar - so we got snatched out with no drama. Lots of liquid running under the vehicle - but it turned out to the water from the overflow on the radiator - because it was at such a angle! No damage done! Funny though - the first time we need to be assisted out of anywhere and its a winery on a sealed road!
It turned into a very non-roughing it weekend. We ended up going out for a very expensive and very good meal in Albany and even got an excellent pub lunch at Mt Barker on the way down. The quality of food and wine was noticeably better than anywhere we’ve been since Tasmania. We were glad we put this trip off until the bank balance was recovered a bit because there were, as they say multiple buying opportunities! On Sunday it started off ,to out delight, overcast and drizzly - quite exciting to see rain! It was nice weather for wine tasting and we also found an excellent artesian cheese maker. Later we stopped at the rasbery farm for the homemade ice cream!
We ended up driving about 120km (one way) to get to the Tree Top Walk and Walpole which we had been hearing about for a while. Very clever design where you walk up ramps to get to the tree canopy of the large Karri trees (yes spelt right and I don’t think related to NZ’s Kauris). The climate is distinctly different down the south coast - will relatively few days over 30 and lots of weather in the mid-20’s - this makes it by far the most temperate climate in Western Australia.
Now we did try the sea at Albany - and it was a bit too much like NZ - ie cold. One the way back from Denmark I wanted to see the Green Pools which are on the front of ever local tourist brochure - a piece of sea coast where the large granite outcrops break the surf and creat a calm swimming spot. We weren’t overly optimistic, though we did have the togs in the truck, but in fact it was a gorgeous swimming spot - warm and sheltered - it was nice to be able to swim and turn your back on the surf - something you can’t really do in Perth!
